start

Fatin, Zach, Vanessa, and Lisa came to my place. I gave them a quick explanation on my project, but I felt like people weren't really listening or able to concentrate (some were distracted, others had asked me about my fyp before and knew already), so I kept it very short. I then showed them how to fold a booklet out of an A4 sheet in a very simple way. They all made their own then and started sifting through the materials we had. Everyone seemed to approach it very confidently, only Fatin was a little lost and asked me to tell her again, what exactly she was expected to do. I asked her to make her zine while thinking of her experience with ACE. "what was it like for you? what comes to mind when you think of ACE?". That was enough instruction for her, and she started searching through materials with what seemed like an aim.

It was rather messy - people passed on scissors and glue while talking about everything possible (Lisa's recent work trip, pass expiry dates and visa regulations for China, Zach's dating life, etc.) When they they were done, I asked them to show us the result and explain what they had done. They all seemed a bit proud of their zines and they were able to resonate with each others results ("I get what you mean", "ah yes, very on point"). Some pages were also really funny.

materials provided:
- coloured paper
- brochures and flyers collected by Vanessa and me throughout the year
- a magazine about "living in Singapore" (for expats)
- print-outs of pictures I had left over from previous crafts and letters I did (mostly pictures of singapore, me, and my friends)
- print-outs of some readings from the course
- a few hand-written notes of lectures of mine
- stickers, pens, glue, scissors

Personally, I struggled to focus on making my own zine. I was a little anxious and stressed beforehand, because I didn't know if it's gonna work how I imagined it and because I knew some of the parameters were chosen randomly/intuitively and could potentially impact the dynamics and the process heavily (for example no. of participants, provided materials, phrasing of instruction). I also tend to be worried a lot about everybody's well-being in group settings (especially when hosting and when there's new people in the setting), which basically demanded most of my energy.
I was also worried, that we should discuss the course more while crafting (which we didn't do much), but at the same time I wanted it to flow organically and not be moderating. Therefore I was positively surprised by how the finished zines very much related to the people's ACE experiences and there were definitely themes emerging in their visual outcomes and explanations to it.

24.9.25 mentoring with Dr. Soh:
it's too much to source through everything (read all readings, slides, etc.) -> more experience based? Assignments, group works, etc.
Maybe think of why I came here in the first place ?
Set parameters
Is it important to include different experiences? Eg. Chinese students, Indian students, locals, etc.
maybe even include experiences of people I don't have a relationship with yet?

4.10.: Talk with Henry (from Karate-class, undergraduate in biotechnology)
we eat lunch after training, he asks what I study
he is surprised, "SG is not the best place to study arts is it?"
I agree that it is indeed quite a different landscape from what I've known before and that I feel like the focus is much more on heritage rather than contemporary arts
he quotes Lee Kuan Yew "poetry is a luxury we cannot afford"
(...)

I realise i have had similar conversations and reactions from many Singaporeans that asked me why I am in Singapore and what I study.
This conversation somehow was funny, because it felt as if he had reflected on it before, although he says he is not particularly interested or engaged in arts of any sorts. Usually the conversations end after they express their surprise at me studying something related to arts, often because they're not "into arts" or feel like they don't have to contribute anything or maybe they are not interested.
This I've experienced also in other countries, but not the surprise part

reading about Lee Kuan Yew and his quote, impact
an exhibition in Hong Kong: https://www.artforum.com/events/a-luxury-we-cannot-afford-214924/
collection of local poetry: https://blog.thryft.asia/featured/a-luxury-we-must-afford/
Chia, C., & Ip, J. (2014). A luxury we cannot afford: an anthology of Singapore poetry (First). Math Paper Press.

Aayushi reacts to this:

Arts Business:
community, making friends

Cultural Policy:
talks with Aayushi
blog posts
readings
A Manifesto for Arts Funding, Alfian Sa'at
governmentality

Cultural Diplomacy and Intelligence:
group work
working together with Singaporeans (?)
nationality, ethnicity

Museums:
Art school teacher, pedagogy
familiar habitat, fun + frustration
community
field trips

Cultural Analytics and Informatics:
Guest lecture by Alvin (Chua?)

Cultural Industries and the Law:
interesting lectures; contract law, ownership and title
an exam

getting to know Singapore

getting to know people. nationality!
food; swiss rolls. me not eating “western food” stall, aayushi not eating from “indian” food stall

daily life, building habits, routine, structure.
procrastination, brain exercise

(my bubble and comfort zone); stress of wanting to get to know THE REAL SiNGAPORE
attempts (instagram searches, party with aayushi, asking locals, going to exhibitions and events, by myself and with friends, walking into bookstores and asking for literature by local authors, reading)
wanting to find underground / alternative scenes, art scene.

critical thinking
political activism? yale, palestine
creativity :( personal + in SG
strong focus on heritage

female professors

jobs on the side
financial situations, salaries

attending lots and lots of art events

receiving feedback
grades
comparison, competitiveness
situation with phd stress

travels

dinner before class

outside-reality ; questions about future, friends’ job search

saying goodbye

speculation on alternative course structure with aayushi (taipei)

community for people outside my friend group?

revisit the manifesto of Alfian Sa'at

diplomacy group work

focus on my experience.
recount chronically (to see links between personal life, emotional states, courses, other happenings)
my memory is bad - but what stuck? thinking back month by month, everything that happened.
differentiate btw. direct ACE activites, and personal events/aspects

why I came here in the first place?

-intellectual (academic) challenge needed (wanted to have a smoking brain); art school was not challenging in that sense (learned more about myself, emotional intelligence, working simply with personal motivation, how to cope with not having any external structure), teaching as well (decision-making, emotional intelligence, pedagogy)

-fed up with art bubble I was in
realisation that it is privileged and the understanding of art is quite limited.
> wanted a new perspective on arts and culture, be confronted with other understandings, ways of working in the arts, different art scenes from the ones I've gotten insight into so far (all european)

-scared of getting too comfortable (had a very comfortable life; stable income, friends & family, hobbies etc.), scared of not growing, not staying open-minded
knew I had to get out of western contexts to get an actual challenge, knew I wanted something in the direction of arts but more theoretical than studying fine arts itself. both curating and art history seemed too limited. > change of continent > interesting programmes in HK and SG, SG's deadline came first
the fact that I didn't know ANYTHING about SG was a reason to actually choose to come here

8.10.25 mentoring with Dr. Soh:
start writing; an hour daily, just write freely, without structure yet
edit and structure later,
come to gathering by Fatin and Emma, talk with new ACE students
talks with Pinchen, Wenxin Jiang

Walking through campus

Hinge date with Asyraf (engineer)
He tells me about his memory of Switzerland (he spent 3 hours in Zürich) and how it really blew his mind that we don't have gantries in train stations (these tap-in and tap-out systems). I didn't understand why he found that so crazy, so I asked him to explain. He then tells me that this system wouldn't work in Singapore. People wouldn't buy tickets. I was still confused and asked if he thinks people also wouldn't buy tickets if they knew they would get fined heavily if they get caught (bc that's what happens in Switzerland). He insists that yes, this wouldn't work, people would still risk it.
"We're not responsible people. We do really well with rules and instructions." then he basically says, that Singaporeans don't know how to handle this kind of responsibility. "Maybe that's also because the government...yeah." He doesn't finish his sentence, then goes on: "We also don't perform well in creativity. I mean it would be nice, but we don't have much arts. That's also why it's a little...wow?... that you're studying arts and culture here"

We talk more about gantries and I tell him that I actually really love going through them in MRT stations, because it makes me feel like I'm in a big city. Switzerland always feels a bit like a village to me. It doesn't have all these automatized systems. Singapore also rarely feels like a big city, but when it's rush hour and so many people have to pass through the few gantry readers, everyone knows where they're going, and it's making these beeping sounds, it actually does feels like one. He is surprised and asks me if it doesn't just make me feel like a robot. I mean, yes.

15.10. Coffee with Hanxuan
We spent more than an hour together, chatting about the course and life. I started by
explaining the project and what anarchiving is and that I was curious about people's

experience's as they might be different from mine. Also we have been in classes together, but we've barely talked. I think he understood my explanations well, because he started talking and barely needed me to ask him specific questions. I mainly listened, sometimes inquired more about something, and took notes in my notebook of what I found interesting. Sometimes he was searching for words, or would pause to see if I was able to follow. I think he was also thinking while talking sometimes, because he would say things on the line of "now that I think about it, I realise ... ". He's overall a very confident person, and although I got that vibe before already, it still surprised me, as he is not loud and very soft spoken. It was a little frustrating also, because (and I knew this already) it showed me again, that there were so many personalities in this programme, that are super interesting characters and might have become friends, but I didn't get to know them all. I do believe I did try to approach people, but I still regret not doing more, and sometimes there was simply no opportunity. There are several people I've for example shortly talked to in class and we exchanged contacts or instagram and we tried to get coffee but somehow didn't make it, or I've invited them for café porsche at my place, but they weren't free.

Right after the talk with Hanxuan, although it was super interesting, I wasn't sure how it was gonna help me with anarchiving. But then again, that's not the point. Anarchiving should exactly hold the space for uncertainity and "unnecessary" things.

okay so doing this chronically didn't exactly work out. Some of these topics occupied my brain for long, or at several instances throughout the year. prioritising also didn't exactly work visually, but I think overall it still gives a good representation of what's been going on. It inspired me to go back to the blogposts we wrote in Cultural Policy and read through some of them. Mine also seem to represent well what I was thinking about a lot during the first semester in particular.. This activity also showed me what topics/aspects I haven't looked into yet, but really want to: daily routines, (international) community, group work situations

rereading blogposts from our Cultural Policy course. Mine about creativity:

I had made this drawing of what it feels like how the government handles art matters and creative production (left), vs. how it would be nice if they did in my opinion (right).
Now that I am looking over it a year later, I realise the illustration on the left might need a small adjustment, so I redid it:

"infusing" might also be an unfitting term, as infusing would imply that it changes the original composition. But from my understanding, the art that is supported and allowed does not have such strong effects, nor does it evoke larger dynamics. It is overall a rather controlled situation with calculated outcomes.

22.10.25 mentoring with Dr. Soh:
going through this page and a draft I've started for my thesis paper, the concept of cultural intelligence stood out to her. she said I keep talking about it, without mentioning it and that this would be great for my paper to use as my research question. she also mentioned which readings from ACE5410 I can use for this.
I will do this, and at the same time I will continue what i've started (writing on the extracted themes).
PLUS - as mentioned in my milestone check, I will:
 look into my own daily routines over the past year
 create a collage / stock photo of international students sitting on a patch of grass on campus